Using Instance Profiles

Introduction to Instance Profiles

An “Instance Profile”
is a mechanism in AWS to allow VMs to have access to the AWS API and AWS services.
It avoids the need to supply (and manage) AWS access keys, instead associating an “IAM Role” with the instance.

The Visual Composer uses an instance profile to provide context assistance, inference and validation
when creating CloudFormation blueprints. The instance profile also gives permissions for the
“Install to AWS Service Catalog” action. This instance profile needs to be created ahead of time
and specified as an “IAM role” when creating the VM.

Creating the Instance Profile

To review and create the Instance Profile, go to “IAM” in the AWS Console, then go to “Roles”.
Roles created in the UI automatically have a corresponding instance profile created.

Launching with the Instance Profile

When launching the Visual Composer from the AWS Marketplace, we recommend that you use
select “Launch through EC2” on the Choose Action dropdown. This allows the Instance
Profile to be set at launch time.